Feild Recalls Disney, Teaching

"I began to learn what it's all about at Walt Disney Studios," Robert Duncan Feild '30 recalled, reminiscing at a reception in Hilles Library yesterday. The reception marks the opening of a month-long exhibit of Feild's watercolors on Hilles' second floor.

Feild, Associate of North House, worked with Disney early in his career. Speaking on the Disney style, he said. "Animation is the contemporary art form. But after 'Fantasia', it ceased to be art. Animation is a terribly expensive craft--in a competitive economy, animation can't afford to be an art form."

A term as Instructor of Art on the Harvard Faculty ended in 1939 with Feild's controversial dismissal from the University, "I happen to consider myself a radical," the 79-year-old artist told guests at Hilles. "I was out of sympathy with art instruction at Harvard. But art is on illustration of society. Art is my politics," he said.